[Truffle]

Good Evening,

I have just cleared my raised bed of tomato plants which sadly had what appears to be blight.

I have disposed of the plants as I'm aware they should not be composted but is there anything else I have to do to the soil? Also what can I plant there next year? Obviously not toms or potato.

My first year doing toms in raised bed and first year with blight, hence not really know what I'm doing, so any advice would be great.

Cheers Truffle

[mumofstig]

As long as you have disposed of foliage and dug up all of the tubers, there is nothing else to be done.
Next year if any volunteer potatoes start to grow, pull them out asap, in case they have carried the disease through the winter.

[Truffle]

I have weeded through the bed thoroughly and turned it over, so fingers crossed all removed.

Thanks for the advice, most appreciated.

Truffle

[Headgardener22]

My understanding is that blight overwinters on living plant material such as potato tubers. However, I don't think it overwinters on composting tomatoes, particularly if the heap is hot enough.

However, I've stopped growing tomatoes at my allotment because no matter how careful I am, others are less so and leave potatoes in the ground or in the compost heap. The only solutions I have found are to grow blight resistant varieties, in a greenhouse (which means that the plants don't get damp) or grow very ealy varieties so that they're over before blight strikes.

[sunshineband]

I do compost blighted tomato material, as our heap heats up well usually, but also sits happily rotting away for a year before being used ( we have three huge heaps) and there never seems to have been a carry-over problem.

Volunteer potatoes also are usually unaffected as their "parent's" tops will have been cut off before any tubers are affected. I still pull them out, mind you  as they are in the wrong place for the next year's rotation